Of course, there is no problem. They can even play both matches of the tie in one day to save travel expenses and losses at work. The San Marino team can fly to Andorra in the morning, play the match, then both teams can fly back together and play the second match in the evening. Why bother about them, they bring no money to UEFA?greenbay wrote:Personally, I don't see any problem in having the lowest ranked champions play two preliminary rounds. As long as UEFA makes sure that their travel expenses are covered and players can be compensated for income losses at work, where is the harm?
Many of those leagues are "calendar year leagues" anyway or have not more than 18 games per season. So having them play a couple of rounds in July is no problem at all for scheduling. Most of their players are locals with an everyday job anyway, so no problem with that transfer period stuff.
CL reform for the 2018-2021 cycle
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HibeeJibee
- Posts: 483
- Joined: Wed Apr 21, 2010 15:09
Very few of the low-ranked leagues have "calendar year" seasons. Out of the bottom 12 countries, only Faroe Islands and Lithuania.
It just looks like a very lazy solution from UEFA, as if they did all the totals as a sort of 'first draft' and discovered they only had 1 place in QR1 left but 4 countries - and so they would just have to play 2 extra preliminary rounds. Moving just a single champion back from QR3 to QR2 would allow all of them to join in QR1 with other champions. There is no other part of CL or EL where some clubs have to join 2 rounds before anyone else joins.
Why should Faroe Islands enter at QR1 while Gibraltar, Andorra, San Marino and Kosovo must play down over 2 rounds so that only 1 of them will.
It just looks like a very lazy solution from UEFA, as if they did all the totals as a sort of 'first draft' and discovered they only had 1 place in QR1 left but 4 countries - and so they would just have to play 2 extra preliminary rounds. Moving just a single champion back from QR3 to QR2 would allow all of them to join in QR1 with other champions. There is no other part of CL or EL where some clubs have to join 2 rounds before anyone else joins.
Why should Faroe Islands enter at QR1 while Gibraltar, Andorra, San Marino and Kosovo must play down over 2 rounds so that only 1 of them will.
Estonia have calendar year season as well if you take only 12 bottom countries. Plus there are Latvia and Ireland if you take bottom 15. So there are one third from bottom 15 countries with calendar year seasonHibeeJibee wrote:Very few of the low-ranked leagues have "calendar year" seasons. Out of the bottom 12 countries, only Faroe Islands and Lithuania
Making those lower-ranked teams (san marino, andorra...) start on Q1 is condemning them to 2 games and out without any coeff points, as it was most of the time. Since they begun having their "own" QR where those teams played each other the situation has improved and san Marino, andorra, malta, gibraltar started having competitive games they can actually win and make some coeff points.
So, I'm assuming this very-early extra rounds are actually a smart way of rewarding the countries of the bottom with some competitive games between themselves and the opportunity to collect a few coeff points before they're out. It's "their" CL and probably their fans also enjoy those moments.
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Having 2 time slots (18-20) what would be the terrible consequences of having a CLGS with 64 teams and then KO rounds from 32 up?
I guess most countries and fans want to have a team in a CLGS and see those 6 games. 64 teams seems a more pleasant number to accomodate an ideal number of teams from all europe without having too much boring matches and without cutting the throat to the minnows. Having 4 time slots I'd say the big 4 could have 4 teams in GS that way; and the top 10 3 teams!...
Just an extra round of KO would also please many viewers and 15 games is not that much of a big deal since we already had a period of 2 CLGS and 17 games.
So, I'm assuming this very-early extra rounds are actually a smart way of rewarding the countries of the bottom with some competitive games between themselves and the opportunity to collect a few coeff points before they're out. It's "their" CL and probably their fans also enjoy those moments.
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Having 2 time slots (18-20) what would be the terrible consequences of having a CLGS with 64 teams and then KO rounds from 32 up?
I guess most countries and fans want to have a team in a CLGS and see those 6 games. 64 teams seems a more pleasant number to accomodate an ideal number of teams from all europe without having too much boring matches and without cutting the throat to the minnows. Having 4 time slots I'd say the big 4 could have 4 teams in GS that way; and the top 10 3 teams!...
Just an extra round of KO would also please many viewers and 15 games is not that much of a big deal since we already had a period of 2 CLGS and 17 games.
Play fair and square!
AliceAG, if i am well informed, so gives this preliminary round from teams of San Marino aso. country-points , but not club-points for the teams. I think i have seen that when Luxembourg also had to play these rounds some years ago .
The bottom 32 champions won't make it to CL anyway. I haven't checked but the number of domestic champions ranked #23 to #55 to have qualified for group stage will easily be next to none.
So they could do a way more radical reform. Have those 32 champions play a full-season KO tournament like the Champions Cup went in the early decades. Winner gets a spot in the Champions League in the following year.
Which leaves 3 Champions Path spots for the champions ranked #11 to #22. So not more than two qualifiying rounds in August. No more July matches.
So they could do a way more radical reform. Have those 32 champions play a full-season KO tournament like the Champions Cup went in the early decades. Winner gets a spot in the Champions League in the following year.
Which leaves 3 Champions Path spots for the champions ranked #11 to #22. So not more than two qualifiying rounds in August. No more July matches.
"Put it in your signature to save you the trouble of writing it over and over again."
Interesting. Few days/weeks ago in another thread Bert himself too was talking about the potential need for some kind of second/third tier in Uefa competitions.greenbay wrote:The bottom 32 champions won't make it to CL anyway. I haven't checked but the number of domestic champions ranked #23 to #55 to have qualified for group stage will easily be next to none.
So they could do a way more radical reform. Have those 32 champions play a full-season KO tournament like the Champions Cup went in the early decades. Winner gets a spot in the Champions League in the following year.
Which leaves 3 Champions Path spots for the champions ranked #11 to #22. So not more than two qualifiying rounds in August. No more July matches.
Gone.
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bert.kassies
- Posts: 831
- Joined: Wed Nov 23, 2005 11:26
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- Contact:
Celtic and Astana qualified for the group stage recently.
But nevertheless, the idea is good. This is the only way to make room in the calendar. They could even organize a league: the Minor Champions League or so. One can even imagine to do the same for the "mid" 16 countries, with 8 group stage places or so, in next year's Champions League. By then, we have made some major steps towards a true European pyramid of leagues. With lots of nice games that can easily fit in the calendar.
But nevertheless, the idea is good. This is the only way to make room in the calendar. They could even organize a league: the Minor Champions League or so. One can even imagine to do the same for the "mid" 16 countries, with 8 group stage places or so, in next year's Champions League. By then, we have made some major steps towards a true European pyramid of leagues. With lots of nice games that can easily fit in the calendar.
UEFA European Cup Football for all UEFA coefficients and rankings
And Maribor.bert.kassies wrote:Celtic and Astana qualified for the group stage recently.
UEFA - We care about money. Pravda za Kolubaru!
It looks as though there is still a chance for the decision to be reverted if Michael Van Praag is elected for UEFA president:
http://www.eurosport.com/football/van-p ... tory.shtml
http://www.eurosport.com/football/van-p ... tory.shtml
Next chapter of the saga ahead (ehm... probably the plot is more like a soap opera). Let's buy some pop corn.Todor wrote:It looks as though there is still a chance for the decision to be reverted if Michael Van Praag is elected for UEFA president:
http://www.eurosport.com/football/van-p ... tory.shtml
Gone.
They can elect whoever they want. CL will become a minnow cup if the big teams don't get what they want. But whatever, I gave it a thought recently. Ten years from now, there'll be a 24 team European Super League. 46 matchdays of Bayern vs Benfica or Arsenal vs Inter or PSG vs Valencia create way more revenue than domestic leagues, even than EPL does. The top domestic leagues will become feeder leagues to European Super League Division Two. Even here, 46 MDs of Celtic vs Olympiakos or Besiktas vs Ajax sound way more promising in terms of money making than they'll ever make it their home leagues.
"Put it in your signature to save you the trouble of writing it over and over again."
the 2009-ranking would have bee the right ranking to dertermie who gets 4 teams qualified for GS !
The match between the 17th placed Benfica and the 13th placed Arsenal will beat all records for TV audiences. When only 1st place matters, they will have to introduce American style play-offs to make sure they won't end up with a dead rubber after round 24 for example when Barca already have a 10 pts lead over the second placed team. The problem is that the play-offs will render the regular season useless and most of the matches will be just glorified friendlies. It will be even worse in the second tier, with no famous names in it.greenbay wrote:They can elect whoever they want. CL will become a minnow cup if the big teams don't get what they want. But whatever, I gave it a thought recently. Ten years from now, there'll be a 24 team European Super League. 46 matchdays of Bayern vs Benfica or Arsenal vs Inter or PSG vs Valencia create way more revenue than domestic leagues, even than EPL does. The top domestic leagues will become feeder leagues to European Super League Division Two. Even here, 46 MDs of Celtic vs Olympiakos or Besiktas vs Ajax sound way more promising in terms of money making than they'll ever make it their home leagues.
Besides you underestimate the outrage of the fans of the teams which will be left outside of the Super League. Will you give a reason why Hamburg fans will follow Bayern or even worse Leverkusen in a competition, they only have an extremely outside chance to take part in and even paying money to watch them?
Icannot understand that some people pay money to see CL on TV. Today, youtube gives you perfect coverage. Okay, it's not HD, but not far away.......(no commercial popups and so on....)
If everyone would cancel his pay-TV contract like i did, European Cups surely but slowly would become interesting again.
If everyone would cancel his pay-TV contract like i did, European Cups surely but slowly would become interesting again.